That’s what residents of the 400 block of Royden Street were when they decided they’d had enough.

Fed up with crime in Camden, a city that routinely tops homicide lists. Fed up with drug use right on the worn marble steps of their row homes and on the street corners.

Fed up with litter covering their sidewalks and streets. Fed up with empty lots choked with weeds, used needles and trash.

Fed up with a city bureaucracy they see as indifferent and an undependable police presence. Fed up with not meeting with their mayor. Fed up with a ward councilwoman they never see.

Fed up by a state assemblyman who lives just a few blocks away in their neighborhood, but never seems to visit their street.

“There was no positive, direct impact from the city,” says Pino Rodriguez, linchpin of the resulting blockresurgence.

Rodriguez and his neighbors decided that since the city couldn’t make their quality of life better, they would do it themselves.

“We created the Block Supporter program. Everyone who lives on the block is a Block Supporter,” explains Rodriguez, who, despite his modest deference, is the soul of the effort. “That empowers the block. There’s no leader.”

The Block Supporter action plan is simple. Each supporter agrees to:

•Keep a property free of trash, whether an owner or renter.

•Assist other residents to keep the block clean.

•Help neighbors “maintain a better quality of life on their block.”

•Distributes information to other residents.

•Offer input and ideas to make the community better.

Rodriguez also enlisted corner stores to join the effort, since the community depends on them for supplies, but also because the retailers generate much of the trash that used to accumulate on the block.

“We tried to show the city we stepped up,” he adds.

But instead of the Block Supporter program being embraced by the city, it was ignored, Rodriguez claims.

Early on — back in April 2011 — Rodriguez sought a meeting with Mayor Dana L. Redd.

He was told by her chief of staff, Novella Hinson, to instead contact an assistant. Rodriguez did, via email. The message, he recalls, was never answered.

Robert Corrales, the mayor’s spokesman, isn’t sure why.

“It’s hard to explain what happened,” years after that meeting was sought, he acknowledges. “The mayor’s schedule is always jam-packed.”

Corrales insists the city is happy to help out groups with supplies from public works if requested. But Rodriguez isn’t surprised the mayor’s office has no explanation for bypassing his request.

“The powers that be take care of Rowan (University), Rutgers (University), the Waterfront and Cooper (University) Hospital first,” Rodriguez says of his neighborhood, just a few blocks from City Hall, Cooper and the concert venue at Susquehanna Bank Center.

In fact, the Royden Street neighborhood was threatened by eminent domain until an agreement four years ago exempted occupied homes, settling years of legal wrangling.

“We get zero,” says Rodriguez.

So he enlisted the help of his own neighbors.

Alexis Rodriguez (unrelated to Pino Rodriguez), a student at Camden County Community College, wears her pride in the city — a hat boldly labeled “Camden.”

Her family has lived in the city for more than 50 years.

She shares a house on Royden with her mother. It originally was Alexis’ grandmother’s home — the kind of generational tale common among many of the street’s residents.

“We live in a bad area,” says the 30-year-old of the surrounding streets in Lanning Square. “The city doesn’t do anything here. They do for the outer part of the city. We’re the inner part.”

So Royden residents did for themselves. They planted trees donated by a foundation.

They decorated them with lights, first at Christmas, then year-round. They switch on and off thanks to donated timers.

The neighbors installed benches, cleaned up the block and kept it that way. They cleared and fenced empty lots, and painted murals on two long-empty homes.

Block Supporter signs were put on every home.

The residents made a community bulletin board out of two utility poles, posting events, information and a news story about how abandoned properties bring down a neighborhood.

They throw block parties and barbecues. Kids from other neighborhoods are encouraged to play on a street that has become relatively safe, even in the evening.

“The children feel safe in the light,” says Alexis Rodriguez, adding drug gangs had previously shot out streetlights, but not since the Block Supporter program began. “Everyone has a negative thought about Camden. We want things to be positive. We still live here.”

“I think there is something we can learn here,” says Dahn Shaulis, a sociology professor at Camden County Community College who has taught Alexis Rodriguez.

“We can educate each other and be in solidarity” — and get more done, Shaulis says.

You can see what makes the 400 block of Royden different just by looking at the streetscape on Google Maps: The block is clean, orderly, even inviting. There are flower boxes on most of the homes.

But it has made all the difference, says Pedro Maldonado, who lives on the street with his sons and mother, Angelina Rosado.

“Before, there was a lot of ... vandalism, dealing drugs. That stopped after we started working together,” says Maldonado, whose family adopted the empty lot next to their row home.

Maldonado has lived in the city most of his 44 years, all except the five he served his country as a boatswains mate in the U.S. Navy.

Now the operations manager of Moorestown Mall, Maldonado says people he meets from elsewhere are shocked he continues to live in Camden, on the street where he grew up.

“Camden is one of the worst cities in the country, but I’m blessed to live here on this block where my mother raised seven kids,” he says. “We don’t let Camden get to us.”

Rosado, 69, came to Camden in 1968.

“We’re trying to do the best we can for this block,” Rosado says. “The neighbors, we take care of each other. The lights made the block better. They made a difference. There are still drugs; drugs are everywhere. But there are less open-air drugs.”

Samantha Figueroa, a 12-year-old who was born on Royden, remembers the block before the supporter program.

“It’s cleaner now,” she says. “Better. My friends come here to play, even though some are from blocks away. They say they have more fun here.”

Her 45-year-old mother, Edna Leon, likes the changes, too.

“Quiet is good in Camden,” she says while watching her daughter play with friends as dusk falls on the clean, well-lit block of Royden Street.